Boomtown
by breakaway-republic
Summary: While running a job for Fred Luo on a remote planet, the crew encounters armed miners, a corrupt sherrif and Hazanko's successors who have abducted Melfina. Can Mel be used to destroy the XGP? You'll have to read to find out.
1. Hostile Reception

**Standard run-of-the-mill boring disclaimer. I don't own Outlaw Star, yet life goes on.** 

It started out as just another routine day at Starwind and Hawking Enterprises, although nobody there was happy with the current routine. It's not that they weren't getting decent paying job offers, it's just that they couldn't carry them out. Jim turned away his third customer of the day because the Outlaw Star's payload was just too small for the kind of work being offered. 

The phone rang again. Jim was a little optimistic, thinking that if enough people called then one of them would have a good job lined up for the Outlaw Star that they could accept. He was disappointed to see that it was Fred Luo. 

"Jim! Hi! How's business going?" 

"Hi Fred" Jim sighed. Fred already knew the answer, he was just asking to be polite- or smug. It was hard to tell sometimes. "What do you want?" 

"Is Gene there? I thought that maybe you two might be interested in doing a job for me if you weren't too busy." 

"What kind of job?" Gene, who was lying on the sofa reading a magazine was now on his feet, looking at Fred through the phone's monitor. 

The effete merchant paused and unconsciously tugged at his right ear. "It's the strangest thing. I had a client who put up some property of his as collateral- it's a parcel of land on the very edge of the Frontier worlds, almost in the Silgry system. Anyway, he disappeared and the deal fell through, so he forfeits it to me. Unless what he said about his property is true, I'll take a bath on this whole thing." 

"What did he tell you?" Jim asked. 

"He insisted that it was directly on top of a huge deposit of dragonite." 

Aisha, who had been home long enough to change out of her waitress uniform and into her C'tarl C'tarl officer's uniform, began listening very intently to the conversation at the mention of 'dragonite'. 

"Ordinarily, I wouldn't have believed him but he was very persistent. Besides, most of the supplies he requested are used for mining or excavating. He even gave me a soil sample from his property. I had it checked out the other day. To say it's a good sample would be something of an understatement." 

"Wait a second..." Aisha spoke up "How do you know the sample he gave you came from where he said it did?" 

"That's just it." Fred paused. "There's no way to verify that. I need somebody to go there and take some more samples. I trust you guys and it would be nice to get some independent results from there- I'd be a laughingstock if I unloaded the property and it turned out I was wrong about the dragonite. If this is some sort of scam, I still don't see what he gets out of it, since I have the deed to his property and the supplies he requested." 

"I see...and exactly how much of this job of yours paying?" Gene asked. 

"Let's start at 750,000 Wong...." 

The three of them nodded and gave each other looks of approval. 

".....a debt write-off to the tune of 750,000 Wong." Fred continued 

"WHAT?!?" Gene yelled. 

"Well Gene, you still owe me 1.5 million Wong. This would cut the amount of money you owe me by half! Of course, I still have faith that you'll make it big someday but I can't wait around forever for your ship to come in." 

"Why you little piece of....." Gene started 

"Hold it Gene!" Jim said. "Let's not say anything we'll regret" 

"I don't believe it" he said looking at Jim "are you saying we should work for this guy for free?" 

"I hate to say it, but he's right Gene. The less money we owe this guy, the better." Jim shuddered after momentarily thinking about the kind of favors Fred might call in. Behind him, Aisha was quietly growling through clenched teeth. Fred saw the angry Ctarl Ctarl through his end of the monitor. 

"Of course, I'll gladly pay a reasonable salary for anybody else you decide to hire on as crew, plus a stipend for supplies and incidentals." he said. 

The three of them were staring daggers at him through the monitor. 

"So it's a deal then!" Fred continued cheerfully "There's some metallurgy software that I'll need to send to you before you leave, Jim. But otherwise I'll wire the funds you'll need for supplies to your account by tomorrow." 

"What a cheap bastard!" Aisha growled as he hung up. 

*** 

Tearing around the universe doing odd jobs for Fred was nothing new to any of them. After a few days of preparation and loading, the crew of five was on their way. It didn't take long for Gene to ask Suzuka what everybody else on board was wondering. 

"Just out of curiosity, Suzuka, since when do you accept job offers from Fred Luo?" 

"Who said anything about working for Fred? I'm simply here for the change of scenery. Since when do you work for free, Gene?" 

"Touche." 

"Wait a second" Aisha said. "I thought Dragonite was found in asteroid fields out in space". It was one of those questions that made the rest of them realize every now and then that she didn't get into her homeworld's prestigious academies on account of her personality. 

"Most of the time it is found in space, Aisha." Jim said without even looking up from the monitor of his little computer. "But every once in awhile part of an asteroid belt with Dragonite in it might pass through a planet's orbit." 

"Oh." 

"Still, the odds of that happening are pretty low. I can see why Fred had his doubts about that story." 

"I've heard of Dragonite showing up in less likely places." the assassin chimed in. 

"That would be nice, but let's not get our hopes up." 

*** 

Getting there was an exercise in tedium, but after nearly 4 days and 6 jumps they made planetfall at their destination without much problem. 

"Jeez- this place looks like Old Earth." Jim commented as he got a good look at the landscape surrounding the spaceport. Blue sky and red earth. The planet's main commercial center and capital was nothing more than a dusty, ramshackle mining town of barely one thousand souls. There were mountains with some vegetation and forest to the north. The spaceport itself seemed out of place. 

"Sentinel is the center of the universe compared to this pl-" Gene started. 

"Welcome to Anaconda." a voice spoke up "My name's Carlos Hasek. I'm the sheriff and I also take care of Immigration and air traffic control here. Will you folks be passing through or staying here for awhile?" a tall figure clad in denim, a long dark blue trenchcoat and stetson stepped up of the hatch. To Jim's delight, the man was a few inches taller than Gene. 

"We'll be staying here for a few weeks, I imagine." Gene spoke up as he uneasily eyed the sheriff's badge pinned to his trenchcoat. 

Hasek blinked in surprise. It wasn't unusual for vessels to come in from off-world once in awhile, but more often than not, they were just passing through on their way to the Silgry system. Very rarely did somebody make Anaconda their destination. 

"I see. In that case, we'll need to go through some immigration formalities....such as the nature of your visit?" 

"Business..." 

"OK, that means you'll need a Visitor's Identification Card" he said, ushering the 5 of them down the walkway. "Those cost 30 Wong each and are good for one month. If you'll be staying longer than that, you need to come by my office and renew them. Also, I'll need to put your vessel through quarantine." 

"How long will the Outlaw Star be in quarantine?" Jim asked. 

"Shouldn't take more than a week." The sheriff nonchalantly replied. 

He led them to the elevator at the end of the walkway. Suzuka and Melfina walked between a sensor panel on both of the railings. The sensors started beeping as Gene, Jim and Aisha walked past. Hasek's hand cautiously rested on his holster. 

"Any one of you wouldn't be armed by any chance, would you?" 

Gene opened his cloak in his most non-threatening manner and let the sheriff take a look at his Caster, another pistol and some knives in a rig. Jim held out his palm-sized computer to show what else might have set the metal detector off. 

"You'll have to pay a duty fee for those." he said to Gene. The idea of gun-control on the frontier worlds was beyond ludicrous. "There's also a mandatory currency exchange for groups of five or more." 

Such little bits of red tape were a nasty but inevitable part of traveling out to the very distant frontier worlds. After milling around in the lobby of the spaceport taking care of the rest of the immigration formalities, they were finally able unload their supplies and rent a car that was the same vintage as the Ehefrau, only it wasn't lovingly restored.   
  


Sheriff Hasek watched pensively as the five of them drove off into the mountains. He was so close to finding his very own vein of dragonite up in the mountains, and the mere presence of these outlaws would jeopardize his own discovery. Every now and then the odd prospector would show up on Anaconda, hoping to strike it rich. Most wildcatters and prospectors were ill-equipped and would get discouraged, leaving a few weeks after arriving on Anaconda- their funds and patience depleted. If they stayed any longer or were digging in an area he thought would yield some dragonite, Hasek would have them killed. 

Anaconda had been a fairly quiet platinum and copper mining town in the decade that Hasek served as sheriff. He achieved this by basically daring anyone to challenge his authority and making examples of the few who did. Many people thought he was worse than the few criminals on Anaconda but they didn't speak up. They could only silently wonder how he was appointed sheriff in the first place. Anaconda itself was very much a company town- a Heiphong based mining company long ago claimed all of the rights to any platinum deposits found on the planet 

Making good use of that time, Hasek also appointed himself magistrate, assessor, head of customs and immigration and air traffic controller when he began to suspect that Dragonite might be found in the hills to the north of town. That meant he could monitor the comings and goings of the few prospectors who did come in from off-world, learning from their mistakes. But now the five outlaws that had just landed were better equipped than any others he had seen. 

*** 

The five of them were nearly finished unloading supplies from their rented jalopy. It was a long and uneventful drive along the twisting road up from Anaconda, each quietly enjoying the scenery or thinking about dragonite. Each of them also had a rucksack. Besides carrying enough provisions to last each of them for about a week, there was also the metallurgy software kit from Fred, a portable generator, cooking supplies and some weaponry. It would be a fairly short walk to the cabin from the narrow, rutted gravel road, but it would be mostly uphill. Jim was struggling to get the software to fit with the rest of his supplies. 

"Need any help with that Jim?" Aisha asked. 

He thought about telling her that he had everything under control and didn't need any help, but it had been a long day and a long flight out to Anaconda. She was much stronger than him and willing to help, so he simply nodded. Aisha picked up the bulky software case and slung it over her shoulder before grabbing the rucksack with her share of supplies. 

"Awww...isn't that cute?" Gene said mockingly "Little Jimmy's got himself a helper. Do you think you could help me with my pack too, Aisha?" 

Jim and Aisha stared daggers at Gene for a moment, Aisha with her middle finger fully extended. "Bite me, Gene. Do I look like your pack animal?" Aisha snapped. She then turned to Melfina and asked "How are you doing Mel? Need help with anything?" 

"I'm fine, I think." the quiet bio-android said as she slipped on her bulky rucksack. 

"Well, if you think you need help, go ahead and tell me...." she paused "....or Gene." 

It was Gene's turn to give the Ctarl Ctarl a dirty look as the five of them headed up the steep path. Mel was carrying her provisions and some cooking gear, Aisha was carrying her provisions, some fuel and Jim's borrowed software, Gene was carrying all of his gear and weapons, Jim was carrying his share of supplies in a rucksack that was taller than him while Suzuka was carrying her things, a generator and some of the cooking gear Mel couldn't fit into her rucksack. 

The cabin itself was rustic, to say the least. After setting foot inside, Aisha immediately expressed a desire to set up camp outside 

*** 

"Who do we have in the clink this afternoon, Huntsman?" Hasek asked his only full-time deputy as he returned to the sheriff's office. 

"None other than the hell raisin' O'Riley brothers." the deputy said 

"Again?" he eyed the five inmates, who were regulars in the sheriff's jail cell as much as they were in any of Anaconda's saloons or brothels. "What is it this time?" 

"Kevin roughed up one of the girls over at Paradise..." the deputy explained indifferently "One of the bouncers tried breaking it up, but the others jumped in and tore up the place real good." 

Hasek shook his head. "When will you guys ever learn?". Of course the sad truth was that there wasn't much else for the miners on Anaconda to save up their money for besides booze and whores. Still, that didn't give these 5 the right to tear up the saloons and brothels whenever they felt like it. "I think 30 days will give 'em enough time to reflect on what they did wrong." 

"30 days?" The oldest yelled out. "You can't do that....." 

"I'm the sheriff AND the magistrate. The last time I checked, I could do that." 

"...but we won't get paid this month!" one of the middle O'Riley brothers protested. 

"What are you complaining about? You'll get your free meals each day....." Hasek said. However, he was just as enthusiastic about the sentence as the O'Riley's were. With these Outlaws coming from off-world looking for Dragonite, the last thing he needed to do was babysit a bunch of degenerate miners. 

"Unless......" the sheriff spoke up after giving it a few moments of thought "...the five of you might be interested in doing some 'community service' to reduce your sentence." 

"Community service?" the youngest O'Riley, Kevin, asked. 

Hasek pulled one of the rifles out of the gun rack on the other end of the office and cocked it without pointing it at anybody in particular. 

"It seems we have some unwelcome guests up in the mountains." the sheriff said. "If you can take care of them, I'll reduce your sentences to time already served and you can be back to work in no time." 

*** 

They had been working hard for the past 3 days. If Aisha wasn't helping Jim extract soil samples, she was out hunting wild animals. It was thanks to her that they had a few days supply of venison. It turned out that Suzuka was quite good at fishing, one the many myriad skills she had learned from her late father. Much to Gene's dismay, he found himself cleaning and gutting Aisha and Suzuka's catches. Now, the sun was dropping down the horizon as Aisha found Jim sitting by the creek. Much to her surprise, he wasn't doing his laundry, he wasn't taking soil samples, he wasn't fishing, he wasn't panning for dragonite, and he wasn't working on his little portable computer. He was just sitting there, taking a well-deserved break, admiring the scenery and watching the world go by from his spot in the fading sunlight. Every now and then, he would pick up a pebble and toss it into the creek. Aisha was happy to know that after all those times she told him he was working too hard and needed to enjoy his life, she wasn't simply wasting her breath. She smiled and thought back to when she was roughly his age, spending hours on end on a branch of the old tree behind her family's house, doing nothing more than looking at the trio of moons and watching the wind ripple through the tall grass and wildflowers in the meadow below. To be that young again, she sighed. The boy turned around and noticed her standing behind him, lost in thought. 

"Hey Aisha. What are you doing?" 

"Melfina wants to know what you'd like for dinner." she walked up next to him. 

"It's dinnertime already?" 

She nodded "Just about. I think your choices tonight are fish, venison and berries." 

"As long as it isn't Deji-double stew I'll be fine." 

"Hey...!" She playfully tousled the boy's hair and in a haughty tone started to say "Deji-double stew is an acquired taste for the most discriminating of palates. I can't help it if you Terrans....." she stopped in mid-sentence. Jim noticed that her ears were twitching. 

Somewhere across the creek she heard a twig snap. It was far too heavy to be a woodland creature. A light breeze was blowing a scent in her direction. There was a faint whiff of what she thought was a Terran, but more ominously she recognized the scent of oil and lubricant used to keep guns working properly. After spending all those months with Gene and his little arsenal, it was hard not to notice that scent. However, Gene was back at the cabin. 

"Aisha?" 

"It's nothing" She said calmly, but at the same time she grabbed the boy's hand and roughly pulled him to his feet. "Let's go back to the cabin and help Mel with dinner." Whoever was on the other side of the creek could've been eavesdropping on them. Aisha didn't want to tip her hand and let them know she was aware of their presence before she could get Jim to the relative safety of the cabin. As good as her senses were, she couldn't get an exact fix on their visitor's location because the setting sun was in her eyes. That particular drawback would disappear in a few moments when it was dusk, so she had to bide her time until then. 

The two of them began briskly walking down the path leading back to the cabin. Aisha now had her hand firmly clamped around Jim's wrist. It hurt, but he knew enough to trust Aisha's enhanced senses since they had gotten him out of a few jams before. 

Suddenly a single shot rang out from the direction of the cabin. 


	2. The New 108 Stars

Although they made no attempt to conceal themselves, three men dressed in black and carrying rifles and shotguns stealthily approached the front of the cabin. It wasn't quite dark out yet, but they blended in with the expanding shadows fairly well. After cautiously checking the sides of the cabin, one of them slowly pulled open the front door. He was unable to see it, but attached to the doorknob on the other side was a string that led along the wall, out the window down the branch of a tree and wrapped itself around one of Gene's double-barreled pistols which was securely placed in the crotch of the tree. As the intruder pulled the door open further, Gene's pistol went off, striking the intruder in the knee. 

"SHIT! THEY SHOT ME!" He yelled out, lying on his side and clutching his knee. His two companions raised their weapons and began firing in the general direction of the tree. One of them had stopped firing, but the other continued firing almost randomly with his automatic rifle. 

"HOLD YOU FIRE GODDAMMIT!" the intruder yelled over the din of the gunfire. His compatriot with the rifle stopped firing and held his gun almost sheepishly."It's a trap! They must have been expecting us" 

"Nothing gets by you guys, does it?" Gene's voice came from above them as he dropped a concussion grenade from the rooftop. He and Suzuka looked down at the trio from the roof of the cabin. They covered their ears as the grenade went off below them with an echoing BOOM. Amazingly, aside from the one who was shot in the kneecap, their unwelcome guests were still on their feet, although they still had their ears covered. Gene and Suzuka did their best to change that as they jumped down from the roof. Suzuka hit the one who was loosely clutching his rifle with the broad end of her sword, putting him out cold, while Gene sucker punched the other one. The two intruder crumpled to the ground in a heap. 

*** 

A single shot, then more shots and yelling came from the cabin as Aisha and Jim were sprinting down the path. It sounded like a war zone. Behind them, three shots rang out in rapid succession and a bullet ricocheted off of a tree a few inches to Aisha's right. It was best to keep moving, since moving targets were harder to hit she said to herself. Jim was scooped up like a sack of rice. She had survived gunshots before, but she wasn't willing to put that to the test for him. 

The flurry of gunfire coming from the cabin had stopped, but that silence was followed by a loud explosion. Aisha was wondering if their attacker was still zeroing in on them or if they were out of range by the time they reached the cabin. For a few seconds she was afraid that they went from the frying pan into the fire, but she heard Gene's voice, gloating from the other end of the cabin. 

Jim was leaning against the back door catching his breath. Aisha opened the door and pushed him inside. "Stay away from the windows until I come back." she said, closing the door behind him. She swiftly clambered up the side of the cabin and onto the roof and peered down on Gene and Suzuka interrogating their semiconscious attackers. 

"Pssst..." she whispered. The two of them looked up at her. "There's at least one more" Aisha 

"Where?" Suzuka asked in a hushed voice 

Aisha said nothing and pointed behind the cabin with her thumb. "Jim's inside. How about Mel?" 

"She's inside also" Suzuka said. 

Gene drew his pistol and Aisha shook her head "no". There wasn't much daylight left, and Aisha's night vision was much better than anybody elses. Besides, one of the moons was full- she was in her prime. Gene looked at the two of them and asked under his breath "Why should she have all the fun?". Aisha got a running head start and jumped from the roof to an adjacent tree limb, then began making her way above the forest floor by leaping from tree to tree. The two of them were amazed at how quietly she was able to do this. 

*** 

The pirate ship was in a geosynchronous orbit 700 kilometers above the desolate mining planet's capital. It's shape would have looked familiar to the Outlaws were they there to see it- the ship was the Necromancer, sister ship of the Geomancer. 

"I don't understand, why would they go all the way out to this god-forsaken rock?" Lan asked. 

The pair of siblings, Khali and Daro said nothing and stared intently at the monitor. Like she assassin known as Twilight Suzuka, Khali was quite beautiful. However, also like Twilight Suzuka, she made it clear that she did not rely on her looks. Rather, she got as far as she did in the 108 Stars mostly out of ambition and sheer ruthlessness. Her brother Daro was a tall, imposing figure and the two of them were considered inseparable. 

The missing Prof. Gwen Khan was undoubtedly a genius, but wasn't graced with much in the way of common sense. Like their Lord Hazanko, he had disappeared without a trace and was presumed dead. The trio of pirates were now the de-facto leaders of the 108 Stars. Their subordinates were able to hack into Khan's private database regarding the XGP and the bioandroid and learned of the tracking device he had planted during its construction phase. It had proved to be a treasure-trove of information about the XGP. However, they had yet to find anything in there about overriding the command protocols and deleting the crew registry from the ship's computer. That information was contained in a "black box" and only one person knew of its whereabouts- the outlaw Hilda. Still, there were ways to circumvent that. 

It was also evident that somebody else had been diving into Prof. Khan's data- probably not the Space Forces or the Ban Guild. The fact that it was an unknown party possibly looking at the same files was what had prompted them to leave in such a hurry. Yet, simply finding the XGP better news than they had dared hoped for. And if they found the ship, then the bio-android Melfina wouldn't be far behind. 

"Hardly anything this outlaw has done so far makes sense." Khali finally spoke up. 

"Lan- Take two men and a drop ship to the surface and confirm the XGP's location." her brother ordered. 

*** 

The two remaining assailants turned out to be easy prey for Aisha. They were moving fairly quietly, but it was a calm night and Aisha's ears picked up their movement. She paused on the sturdy limb of an aspen tree and decided to let them come to her. Sure enough, the two of them emerged from their hiding spot after a few minutes. One would keep their gun trained in the direction of the cabin as the other would move forward, taking cover behind the tree and repeating the process. One of them was now leaning against the tree directly beneath her, pointing his gun at the distant cabin. She softly hissed, although it steadily grew loud enough for the gunmen to hear. 

"UP THERE! SHOOT IT!" one of them yelled. Before they could draw a bead on Aisha, she leapt from the aspen tree. The air was filled with the sound of gunfire as the Ctarl Ctarl swiftly made her way down the tree opposite the aspen she was in. She delivered a sweeping kick to the face of the attacker closest to her. He was able to block it with his submachine gun, although she kicked it so hard the firing pin was now broken. Aisha then knocked the attacker's legs out from under him with another sweeping kick. The second one was a few yards away and was now running to his friend's aid. He stopped and leveled his gun after seeing the quick work Aisha made of his friend. 

"Get back or I'll......" he started to say. Aisha didn't pay him any heed as she ran forward, ripped the gun from out of his hand, twisted his wrist and sharply kneed him in the stomach. 

"You.....you're not......you're not human" he gasped after getting a close look at the Ctarl Ctarl. 

"I'll take that as a compliment." Aisha said. 

The terrified man's eyes seemed to be fixed on something behind her. The other attacker was still concious and had tried shooting Aisha in the back, but found to his dismay that his gun wasn't working. Instead, he was now attempting to sneak up behind her and club her with the butt of his weapon. Almost blindly, Aisha's fist flew over her right shoulder and found her other assailant's throat. He dropped to his knees with both hands wrapped around his throat. 

*** 

The 5 Hell-Raisin' O'Riley brothers didn't feel like doing much hell raising after the outlaw, assassin and Ctarl Ctarl were through with them. However, they didn't feel like doing much talking either. Except for the one who was shot in the leg, each of them were bound hand and foot. The one who was nursing the gunshot wound simply had his hands tied. 

"For such an out of the way planet, this part of Anaconda sure seems to be getting crowded. Would you be so kind as to tell us what you're doing here?" Suzuka asked, opting for the polite approach and knowing full well how short-lived it would be. 

"Not a chance, bitch!" the eldest O'Riley brother yelled at her. 

That didn't take long, she told herself. 

"Don't tell me you're afraid of somebody besides us." Gene said. 

None of their 5 captives were speaking. "Let's see now..." Gene said and began counting each one of them, "1....2....3....4.....5. Hey Aisha- how hungry are you?" 

"I haven't eaten for DAYS, you know that Gene. " the Ctarl Ctarl said, playing along with his bluff. She was actually doing pretty well between the provisions she brought with her as well as the wild game, berries and mushrooms she was able to gather around the cabin but the O'Rileys didn't know that. 

"As you can see, we now have some guests over for dinner." 

"But they're all skin and bones!" Aisha complained. 

"What are you complaining about? Five of them should last you awhile." 

"You're full of shit!" One of the middle O'Riley brothers yelled out. 

"Am I now?" Gene asked. 

Aisha got up and stood over Kevin O'Riley, the one who discovered she wasn't human after being kneed in the stomach by her. She sensed that he was the most easily intimidated, and it showed as Aisha approached. She bared her fangs and let out a soft, eager-sounding hiss as he cringed helplessly. 

"What about this one, Aisha?" Gene's foot tapped the wounded knee of Eamon O'Riley, the second oldest sibling. "He's hurt pretty bad. We'd be doing him a favor by putting him down." Eamon gritted his teeth and winced in pain as Gene continued putting weight against the gunshot wound. 

"The last time you did that, I nearly choked on one of your bullets. Gene! Just let me find the jugular on this one here." 

"They're bluffing Kevin!" Eamon managed to yell out. 

"Do you really think that? Do you have ANY idea how much a Ctarl Ctarl will eat?! Serving all of you up as the entree would save us the trouble of running you bastards in to that hick sheriff!" Gene said. 

"You can't do that....BECAUSE SHERIFF'S THE ONE WHO SENT US OUT HERE! OH GOD, GET HER AWAY FROM ME! PLEEEEEASE!" Kevin pleaded as Aisha crouched above him. 

Joining them in their act, Suzuka got up and held Aisha back. "Tell us more." she said. 

Somewhere in the back of Gene's mind, he thought that Hilda would be proud after seeing that little display from the 3 of them. He couldn't speak for Suzuka or Aisha, but he learned all about interrogation from the best. 

*** 

Fishing required a deal of patience and every now and then outsmarting the fish. Looking back on it, Gene wasn't probably the best choice to go out to the lake with him, Jim sighed. The two of them were in a rickety wooden rowboat in the middle of the lake. He wasn't the best company today. Whenever Gene opened his mouth, it was to complain. First it was about the fish, then it was about getting stuck on this backwater planet, then it was about Fred Luo, then it was about how the oars were giving him splinters, even though Jim had done much of the rowing. It was one of those times Jim wished he was just a few years older and a little bit bigger- one hearty shove and Gene would be in the drink and he could row off to a quieter spot along the lake. 

"...and why did Aisha and Suzuka have to come along?" he asked. 

"Aniki, quiet. You're scaring the fish!" 

"....and that redneck sheriff. Who the hell does he think he's dealing with? I'd love to take him down a notch or two." 

"Aniki......." 

"Sending those stupid-ass thugs up here to try and scare us off. I wouldn't put it past him. Why did we agree to let them go in the first place? Does he think we're just a bunch of punks who'd turn tail and run? Well, he's got another think coming." 

"Because if what they said about the sheriff was true, turning them in would've been a waste of time. Now.....be quiet" 

"Mandatory currency exchange my ass. You know we'll never be seeing that 2000 Wong again. What a load of bullshit. Now we're stuck with that useless toilet paper they call money here." 

The boy genius closed his eyes. Shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up Jim tried telling him through telepathy. It wasn't working. Why aren't you shutting up? he asked himself. 

"This whole trip is a bust. We're not making a single wong off of this, and when we come back, we're still going to owe Fred money." 

"Yeah, but it won't be as much." 

Gene actually remained quiet for a few minutes before he spoke up again. 

"To hell with this." Jim thought he meant that he was going to row back to shore. Instead, Gene tossed the rest of the worms into the water and after waiting for a few seconds, removed a concussion grenade from inside his overcoat, pulled the pin and lobbed it into the water. 

"Gene! You stupid...." his words were cut off by a damp, muffled explosion as the boat shook and water rained down on them from above for a few seconds. Shortly after, over a dozen fish began floating to the surface belly-up. 

"All right!" Gene said triumphantly "Get the net Jim!" 

The two of them began feverishly scooping out the fish from the surface. Since they were in a shallow part of the lake, they also managed to dredge up a lot of weeds. That was stupid, Jim thought, but at least they don't have to worry about going hungry for awhile. Jim felt the net hit the surface each time he would scoop out more fish. As he emptied out the contents of the net, her heard something hard clatter on the floor of the boat. It wasn't a fish, and it wasn't weed. He looked down and saw a purplish gleam coming from the floor. Reaching down, he picked up a small purple gem slightly larger than an ordinary pebble. It was..... 

"Take a look at this, Aniki...." he said, holding up the rock. 

A big grin came across Gene's face. "Jackpot, partner!" 

They had struck Dragonite. 


	3. All That Glitters

There it was. After all of those months of searching, the XGP was simply sitting there in front of Lan, alone and undefended in the early evening hours at this god-forsaken spaceport. He and the two ninjas that accompanied him made their way up the service elevator and onto the catwalk. Was this the vessel that had cost Lord Hazanko and so many of his subordinates their lives? It was bittersweet. The hatch was closed, but they had all night to break the code and alter the crew's roster and launch protocols. 

"Can I help you people with something?" a towering figure in a long coat and stetson asked the three of them. Lan was so busy trying to figure out how to get into the XGP that he didn't notice Sherif Hasek and Deputy Huntsman approach them from behind. Lan saw a shiny silver badge on the tall man. 

"Leave us be, law-dog, and I'll make it worth your while." Lan said. 

"It's just like I told your friends, you can get the ship back when it's out of quarantine." Hasek said, ignoring the thinly veiled attempt at bribing him. 

Friends? Quarantine? Lan asked himself. He must mistake us for somebody else. Does he think we're friends of the Outlaw? He turned to face the sherif. 

"I said leave us be........" Lan started to say. His words were cut short by the very loud and abrupt sound of gunfire. On either side of him, the two ninjas jerked and convulsed as they were being riddled with bullets before finally crumpling to the ground. Hasek put his pistol back in its holster and Huntsman casually slung his rifle back over his shoulder. 

"You were saying something....?" the deputy snickered 

"Paguwasunba, paguwasunba, paguwasunba paguwasunba......" Lan started to chant. His eyes were closed and his hands moved rapidly around in small circles in front of him. A glowing purple aura had formed around him."Paguwasunba, paguwasunba, paguwa*ACK*---" Lan suddenly felt something crushing his windpipe and slam his head back into the hull of the XGP. The sherif's right arm was a telescoping prosthetic. From a distance of 10 feet, his right hand shot out and firmly wrapped around Lan's throat while still attatched to his arm. 

"A pirate, huh?" Hasek said. "Well I'm not impressed. Are you, Huntsman?" 

"Hell no! What should we do with him?" 

Hasek pulled a knife from his sheath. His telescoping arm was slowly retracting as he walked closer to Lan. "I say we give this cocky little bastard a free traecheotomy to remember his stay in Anaconda! You're a long way from home Mr. Pirate, aren't you?" 

Lan said nothing and glared defiantly at the sherriff. 

"What brings you to our humble little planet? How many of your pirate buddies are here on the surface with you?" he slowly applied more pressure to Lan's throat. 

Lan feebly struggled for breath, but no air was coming into his lungs. He couldn't form any words, so he just looked at the two lifeless ninjas lying on the floor of the catwalk. 

"I see. You and those two. Kursk spaceport's been closed for awhile and this was the only vessel to come here from off-world all month" Hasek said, referring to the Outlaw Star. "Which means you must've come down in a drop ship. Isn't that right?" 

Lan nodded. 

Still clutching Lan's throat, he turned around and effortlessly threw the pirate to the floor. Lan immediately started rubbing his throat. 

"A word of warning" Hasek said, towering over the pirate."Outlaw or Pirate, I don't give a shit. Neither is welcome here. Be sure to scamper off and tell your pirate pals that. Otherwise you might wind up like those guys." he pointed to Huntsman who had scooped up one of the lifeless ninjas and perched it on the railing. It looked as though it were just sitting there. Huntsman grabbed a lifeless arm and started waving it at Lan. 

"Say 'bye-bye'!" the deputy said before he shoved it off the catwalk. A few seconds elapsed and a faint *thud* could be heard from below. 

Hasek started to walk off, but stopped a few paces away from Lan. "One more thing. I'm sure it's tempting to cast some sort of spell behind my back, but ask yourself this: what happens if you miss? Do you really want to find out?" 

*** 

"AAAAAAAAHHHH! HAHAHAHA! YOU DID IT! YOU REALLY DID IT!" Aisha giggled and let out a loud gleeful squeal. Jim and Gene showed them the dragonite they had fished out of the lake. Immediately she picked up Jim while giving him a big bear-hug, and spun him around yelling out "You're a genius, Jimmy! A genius!". Aisha was squeezing him so hard that he could hardly breathe and she was spinning around so fast that he was starting to get dizzy- like a carnival ride that he almost didn't want to get off of. 

"Hey!" Gene yelled out indignantly "I'm the one who found the..... 

"Excellent work, Jim" Suzuka interrupted as Aisha set a freshly squeezed Jim back down "It appears this journey out here was worthwhile indeed." None of them were paying attention to Gene. 

"I knew you could do it!" Mel said cheerfully as she put her hand on his shoulder. 

"But if it wasn't for me......" Gene started to say. 

Aisha glared at Gene. The next thing he knew, one of her long talons was pointed right in front of his nose. "You're pathetic, Gene! Jim does the work around here and when it starts to pay off, you want to take all of the credit-" 

"Take it easy, Aisha...." he said defensively. Tempting as it was, he wasn't going to tell her to shut up with her standing so close to him. He also saw that Suzuka and Melfina were silently nodded in agreement with her. 

"Jim found the dragonite, you said so yourself, Gene. All you can take credit for is some dead fish." the demure assassin spoke up, handing him a knife "Speaking of which, they still need to be cleaned and gutted for tonight's dinner." 

"Do you think there's any more where that came from?" Melfina asked Jim. 

Jim was at his computer now, bringing up a topographical map of the area on the screen, trying to answer Mel's query. He zoomed in on the quadrant where the lake and cabin were located. 

"Whoa....." he said quietly as the others were now closely grouped behind him and looking over his shoulders. 

"What is it?" Gene queried, asking what everybody else was thinking. 

"Look at the outline of the lake. Why didn't I notice this earlier?" Each of them were studying the map on the computer screen. "Except for some of the creeks that are feeding in and out along the edges of the lake-, it looks like....." 

"A crater! Where a big meteor hit!" Aisha yelled out excitedly, finishing Jim's sentence for him. 

"Right. Which means we've been looking in the wrong place for dragonite. If there's more, chances are that it won't be underground. It'll be underwater!" 

*** 

"How could you let this happen? The XGP was right there, and some stupid constable sends you running back here with your tail between your legs?" Khali yelled angrily at the mortified pirate. 

"But he took us by surprise...." Lan started to say 

"Khali, dear. Calm yourself." the Tao mistress' brother spoke up "We knew that getting back the XGP wouldn't be easy. What about the bio-android, Lan?" 

"She wasn't with the ship. I'm not sure where she is." 

"Well then, we'll just have to see if we can flush her out." Khali said as her brother sheathed his sword. "If anybody- I mean _anybody_- gets in our way again, kill them". The piratess punctuated this last statement with a crackling loop of violet lightning that coiled it's way up her left arm. 

"We'll need a bargaining chip..." Lan started. 

"There's a crew of five. Find one of them and we'll exchange the XGP for the hostage." Daro suggested. 

Lan looked appaled "You mean after all they put us through, you're willing to let them live? You're saying we should let them walk away?" 

"Not at all." Daro grinned "Hopefully they won't realize that, either". 

*** 

Although they didn't bring any scuba gear with them, it dawned on Jim that there were no less than 2 spacesuits on board the Outlaw Star. The one piece of equipment they really needed, but didn't bother packing up with the rest of their gear. Those could be used as scuba gear in a pinch. The only problem was that it seemed the sherriff still had the vessel in quarrantine. Suzuka, Aisha and Mel went to the mercantile to spend their grossly overvalued Anaconda currency on food and other essentials. Jim and Gene circled around the periphery of the spaceport, trying to figure out exactly how they could get in and out of the ship unnoticed. A lone deputy stood by the base of the supply elevator. 


	4. Incident at the Ananconda Mercantile

Aisha's eyes lit up after catching a glimpse of the pinball machine. She was less ecstatic after she inserted some coins and it did absolutely nothing. 

"Damn thing took my money!" Aisha yelled. She slapped the top of the pinball machine. It was pretty much a gentle love-tap from the Ctarl Ctarl. 

"Whoa there...." a voice spoke up. Sheriff Hasek appeared seemingly out of nowhere. "Look at what you just did." he said, pointing to a small crack in the glass on top of the machine. 

"That was already there." she snapped back at the lawman. Suzuka knew that Hasek was trying to provoke Aisha into a confrontation and approached the two of them. Some people should be careful what they wish for, the assassin said under her breath. Everything she hated about the frontier worlds could be represented by Hasek. He may have been a relatively handsome man at one time, but not to the point where he could use his looks to any great advantage and time wasn't getting any kinder. Sending others to do his dirty work- he was no better than some of her former employers. When all was said and done, he was just a big fish in a small pond who liked to threaten and intimidate people. Now he was about to pick a fight with somebody that wouldn't hesitate to push back. 

"Melfina- go and stay with Gene. I think that things are going to get very ugly here momentarily." she said quietly to the bio-android. 

"Right." 

"I'm sure that Aisha would gladly pay restitution for any damage that's been done." Suzuka said, approaching the belligerent sheriff and Aisha. She decided to step in on Aisha's behalf not because she needed somebody to defend her, but she thought it would look bad if Aisha killed the local sheriff so soon after discovering Dragonite. The two of them really wanted to take this guy down a peg or two. Aisha shot her a look as if to say "Like hell I will", but quickly realized what Suzuka was doing. The assassin could take care of the lawman without neccecarily killing him. Besides, giving him a sorely needed lesson in humility wouldn't do much good if he was dead. 

"Suzuka, is it? This goes beyond money- it's a matter of principle. Parts for these things are very hard to come by around here. Nearly everything has to be imported, including recreational items and groceries." he said, picking up a heavy bag of flour in front of him. 

With his prosthetic arm, the sheriff threw the 10kg bag of flour at the assassin. Predictably, she sliced it in half with her bokken, but was now temporary blinded from the cloud of white powder that resulted. Before she could even react, Hasek pitched another heavy bag- this time rice- which hit Suzuka squarely in the face. The base of her skull hit a shelf immediately behind her very hard and she was out like a light. 

"You'll regret that, Terran." Aisha growled. 

"Oh really?" His artificial arm shot out, missing Aisha's face by a fraction of an inch and knocking a hole in the brick wall behind her. Aisha smiled and grabbed his extended arm and began pulling on it before Hasek could retract it. He could feel it starting to short circuit and come out of its socket. 

"Shit!" he said softly. The petite cat-girl was much stronger than she looked. 

With his free hand, he drew his pistol and shot Aisha twice as she stubbornly continued pulling on his disintegrating arm. His arm retracted as Aisha let go. The 2 of them stumbled backwards and fell, Hasek clutching his now-detached prosthetic arm. 

Aisha was fine. As long as they didn't shoot for her eyes or ears, getting hit with small-arms fire like that didn't hurt much more than falling on her ass. The two of them exchanged icy glances as Aisha started to get to her feet. Then Hasek noticed Aisha's gaze was now fixed on something to his right. Before he could get back up, he looked beside him just in time to see Khali kick him in the face, knocking him unconscious. Next to her was the Tao-mistress' brother. 

"That takes care of Lan's big, bad lawman" Khali said to her brother. 

"Where's the bio-android?" Daro threateningly asked the Ctarl Ctarl. 

"What makes you think I'll tell you....?" Aisha asked, now on her feet and challenging him. 

"Have it your way." he said before drawing his sword and chanting. Even though Aisha had been up against pirates before, she had never seen the Tao and Senjutsu-masters in action for herself. Iraga and Jukai were strong, but they didn't cast any spells in her presence, and she was bewildered by the chanting. She had no time to react when a glowing blue-green ball of light flew off of the tip of his sword and hit her just below the chest. There was the crackle of static electricity and a painful screeching in the air as Aisha bore the brunt of the attack and collapsed on the floor. 

*** 

Jim's hacking worked beautifully, as usual. The gaggle of firemen who had just arrived and the deputy assigned to guard the Outlaw Star were distracted by the false alarm Jim had managed to set off at the opposite end of the spaceport. The two of them headed towards the cargo elevator leading up to the Outlaw Star when a figure stepped out of the shadows. Before even getting a good look, they both had a bad feeling about this person. Instinct told Gene and Jim that this was somebody more sinister than the local lawman. 

"You must be the outlaw Gene Starwind." Lan said. 

"That's right. And who the hell are you supposed to be?" 

"My name isn't important. All you need to know is that I'm here for the bio-android and the XGP." the pirate said as he levitated forward a few feet. His manner of dress and the fact that he was floating off of the ground screamed out pirate guild. And where there was one pirate, there were usually others not far behind. 

*** 

"So this is an immortal Ctarl Ctarl? I've never seen one of them up close, before." Daro said, standing over Aisha. She was on her back, eyes closed, tendrils of smoke coming from a hole in her dress just above her belly. The pirate raised his sword. "I'll have to add her to my specimen collection." 

"You and your collection, big brother." Khali said "she's too big to take back to the ship." 

"I know. All I need is her head and a jar of formaldehyde." 

"Fine" the female pirate sighed "but we should take the other one as a hostage if Lan can't find the bioandroid." she pointed at Suzuka who was still unconscious. 

Daro hoovered over Aisha with his sword. He heard that their skin was quite tough and was trying to figure out where he should start chopping and hacking. Even though it wasn't designed for it, his sword was strong and sharp enough to slice through titanium, so he figured getting the Ctarl Ctarl's head would just be a matter of time. But before he could put his sword to work, Aisha's hand shot out, pinning the blade of it to the wall. Her eyes were wide open and without saying a word, she let him know how much trouble he was in. Before he could pull away, cast a spell or do anything else, she was on her feet and ready to make him regret he ever learned Tao magic. 

"Specimen collection? You really need another hobby." Aisha said. 

Daro barely had time to inhale before Aisha's fist connected squarely with his jaw, breaking it in 3 different places. A sweeping kick to his stomach sent him flailing backwards into his sister, who was standing over Suzuka. His sword clattered to the ground as the two of them landed in a heap. 

Khali almost immediately got back up. 

"You're still alive...? I gotta say, dear, I love that dress of yours." she said mockingly to Aisha as she got back on her feet. 

"You like it? I made it myself- It's genuine patent pirate-skin." Aisha replied. Before they could continue their banter, Aisha ran to close the distance between her and Khali. The piratess was softly chanting "Paguwasunba Paguwasunba......" as Aisha did this. Before the Ctarl Ctarl could reach her, Khali disappeared in a flash of white light and envelope of mist. Aisha's fist connected only with thin air as the piratess reappeared a few feet behind her. 

"You don't honestly think those cheap parlor tricks are gonna save you, do you?" Aisha asked. 

"I'll be fine" Khali said arrogantly. "I'd be more concerned about your own safety if I were you." 

Aisha turned around and lunged at the piratess once again, and she disappeared in another flash. As she turned around, Khali was standing right in front of Aisha with her palm held out level in front of her face. There was a crystalline emerald-green powder in her palm. Khali blew it right into Aisha's eyes. The Ctarl Ctarl immediately covered up her eyes, but it was too late. Even though it was only temporary, the powder burned and blinded her eyes. Khali gave Aisha a sweeping kick to her ribs, and Aisha staggered backwards but remained on her feet and preoccupied with her eyes. Khali was free to do just about anything she wanted to with Aisha. 

*** 

"You pirates." Gene mused as he leveled the Caster at Lan. "Always so willing to die for the Outlaw Star." 

"I have no intention of dying today" the pirate chuckled. "In fact, I'm not going anywhere without the XGP." 

"They all say that." 

Lan began chanting. A glowing purple aura briefly silhouetted him, and then two spheres of mist appeared a few feet in front of the pirate and started radiating a dark, violet color. They were slowly expanding and taking the shape of hands. Gene had seen enough. He pulled the Caster's trigger and a #17 round flew out of the barrel and streaked towards Lan. The pirate clapped his hands together, and the glowing, disembodied hands in front of him flew together, smothering the #17 round as it exploded just shy of it's target. The projectile and hands disappeared. 

"My my. Old magic seems to be showing up in the most interesting places these days." 

"Neat trick..." Gene said 

"Glad you liked it. I learned from the best." Lan smirked. 

"Really? And who might that be?" 

"None other than Lord Hazanko of the 108 Suns" 

"Well tell me something, Mr. Pirate" Gene said defiantly. "If he's so good, how come he's dead?" 

Lan had the angry look of a loyal parishioner who just found out his church was desecrated and began chanting again. A gut feeling was telling Gene to gather up the others and get the hell off of this planet while they still had the chance. The breech of his caster flew open and he slid in another shell. 

*** 

It was the bitter-smelling pool of vinegar that brought him back, almost like smelling salts. A bottle of it fell off the shelf and shattered next to the unconscious sheriff. Before he opened his eyes, Hasek was aware of a loud commotion. He realized that he was still on his side in the general store. He went to put his right arm to his head, but nothing happened. His arm was slightly twitching on it's own 2 feet away from him on the floor. Of course, the Ctarl Ctarl that was traveling with the outlaws ripped it out, he realized. But she wasn't the one who knocked him out. He groggily got to his feet to see where the noise was coming from. It sounded like the Ctarl Ctarl outlaw was still there and fighting with somebody else, but who? With his one hand, he wiped some blood that was trickling down from his forehead and into his eye. As his eyes were finally coming into focus, he saw that the Ctarl Ctarl and Tao mistress were fighting each other. He didn't know who the piratess was, but he could only guess she was an associate of the one they found at the spaceport the other night. 

The piratess actually had the upper hand. She was behind Aisha, firmly gripping her braid, trying to choke her with the green scarf and kicking and kneeing her very soundly in the back. Aisha was doing her best to break free, but she couldn't even turn around and attack Khali. It was tempting for Hasek to let the two of them kill each other, but he figured he should do something before the situation got entirely out of control- if that was possible. He drew his pistol and leveled it at Aisha and Khali. 

Who to shoot first? Hasek asked himself. The bitch who ripped out my arm or the bitch who kicked me in the face while I was down? Eeny meeny miney moe. He remembered that shooting the Ctarl Ctarl didn't have the desired effect. His aching jaw told him to line up Khali in his sights. 

The Tao-mistress noticed the sheriff. "I hope you don't think that's going to work on me." she calmly warned. Hasek paid her no mind and pulled the trigger. The bullet from his gun slowed down as it approached Khali's face, then turned into a glowing white-hot ball and dissolved completely. She smiled triumphantly. 

Oddly, Hasek wasn't the least bit discouraged by this. He saw that Khali was standing next to a pipe that ran down from the ceiling along the wall. The piratess wasn't sure what he was up to, just that he was no longer aiming directly for her. Hasek pulled the trigger three times. One bullet ricocheted off of the wall behind her, but the other two hit the pipe and sent a hot, scalding spray of steam right into Khali's face. She screamed and loosened her grip on Aisha's braid as the steam burned her face. 

Aisha's sight wasn't fully restored, but she could make out the vague outline of her assailant and recognized her scent. She felt the spray of steam coming from the pipe- it didn't hurt her as badly as it did Khali. Before the Tao-mistress could dodge her or cast a spell, Aisha roughly grabbed Khali's hair 

"Let's see how you like it!" Aisha hissed as she held Khali's face in front of the scalding jet of steam for a few seconds. The piratess wailed in agony before blindly thrusting her palm forward and yelling "Haggan Raggo!". A stream of violet light shot from her palm, and the wall and pipes exploded, knocking both her and Aisha to the ground. 

*** 

There she was. Lan saw her from a distance. The bio-android Melfina was running towards the spaceport entrance, but had stopped after seeing Gene and Jim facing off against him. Gene sensed something was amiss when he saw Lan's facial expression change. Before he could see what the pirate was looking at, Lan cast another spell. It was a quick rudimentary spell, but it would suit him just fine in this situation. A small, dim white ball of light soared from his hand, and before Jim and Gene could shield their eyes, it exploded in a brilliant white flash, temporary blinding the two of them. Gene felt somebody run up to him, knock the Caster out of his hand, kick him in the stomach and the roughly shove him onto Jim. However, instead of finishing the 2 of them off, Lan started running towards Melfina, who was still shielding her eyes from the explosion of light. 

"What's your hurry, Melfina?" Lan asked as Melfina backed away from the spaceport entrance. The bio-android turned around and looked at the pirate standing next to her. "Leiline Project Command: It was you who broke my mason plate." 

"No..don't-" she started to say before her personality functions were cut off by the command. Her eyes closed and she fell to the ground. 

*** 

Hasek picked up his severed arm and turned around. Daro was standing behind him and immediately knocked the gun out of his hand and then dropped him with one punch. The sheriff tried kicking upwards from the ground towards the pirate's groin, but Daro grabbed his ankle and flung him like a rag-doll down the store's aisle. Hasek landed painfully on his back after crashing into a shelf. 

"Hey now, you wouldn't hit an unarmed cripple, would you?" Hasek asked Daro as he waved the stump of his right arm. Of course he would, I just need to buy a few seconds...he told himself. Daro picked up his sword that Aisha had bent slightly and Hasek swiftly drew a large caliber derringer from his ankle-holster and pulled both triggers. Both rounds were deflected by the pirate's sword, although one grazed Daro's shoulder. Hasek cursed himself, since he was aiming for the pirate's forehead. He thought as long as he had one good hand to pull the trigger, he could stay in any fight. But now his sidearm was on the other side of the store, and he realized that he was in no shape to fight. He hated the idea of running away, after all he was the sheriff. However, between the Outlaws and the pirates, he realized he was hopelessly outmatched. Daro's eyes rolled in their sockets and the gunshot wound on his shoulder started to smolder and close. That was a silent spell that required no incantation or chant. His jaw was still broken, and there was nothing that could be done about that for now. 

Hasek realized he did have one last trump card to play as he looked at the severed arm he was clutching. A small compartment opened up on the prosthetic and he pulled out two small grenades- little more than noisemakers. He pulled the pins and tossed each of them at Daro. They exploded at his feet and the hulking pirate took a few steps back. Neither Hasek of Daro was prepared for what happened next. Before the pirate could move in and finish off the sheriff, a tall, fully stocked shelf along the wall began to topple and then fell on top of a surprised Daro, pinning him underneath. 

Suzuka was now wide awake and standing at the other end of the fallen shelf. She had regained consciousness and used her bokken to knock the shelf down onto the unsuspecting pirate. 

"Not bad..." Hasek said with a reluctant admiration as he got to his feet. 

"When it comes to pirates, I don't hold back." She eyed the sheriff. "I also have a good memory regarding cheap shots opponents use against me." 

"Yeah....well, about that......." Hasek nervously chuckled as he made his way past her and over to his service pistol. Suzuka made no attempt to stop him. Hasek wouldn't be the first one to try and go up against her with a gun, and he now had the considerable handicap of only one arm. 

He leveled the pistol at Suzuka and then aimed low. Defensively she raised her bokken. 

"Never point your weapon at something you don't intend to kill, sheriff. You're not planning on killing me are you?" she asked with the utmost confidence. 

"Thanks for the firearm safety lesson. You might want to stand aside." he said to her. 

The kimono-clad assassin obliged, looking back at the fallen shelf. She noticed a steady glowing red dot on the side of the fallen shelf and realized it was the laser sight from Hasek's pistol. He pulled the hammer back on his pistol and fired 5 rounds into the fallen shelf before the clip was empty. The sheriff ejected the empty clip and tucked the gun into his waistband before pulling out a fresh clip and reloading- a lengthy process now that he only had one good arm. He walked past Suzuka and jumped on top of the shelf, pulling back the hammer and firing 7 more rounds into it. The gunshots were as loud as a cannon inside the confines of the old store, each one punctuated by the faint *clink* of the brass casings falling to the floor. 

Suzuka was about to ask Hasek if he thought he was overdoing things when the shelf started to tremble slightly. The blade of Daro's sharpened sword shot straight up from underneath the shelf, barely missing the Sheriff's left leg. He stumbled backwards and off of the shelf, thinking about how close he came to needing another artificial limb. 

The shelf exploded into small splinters of wood. The two of them stared in disbelief as Daro slowly brought himself to his feet. Thanks to another non-verbal Tao incantation, Hasek's bullets had grazed him, but hadn't killed him. Suzuka and the sheriff were ready to square off against him. Suzuka was still a little bit woozy from the blow to her head while Hasek still had only one arm and was down to his last 3 bullets. It didn't look good. 

The two of them exchanged hateful gazes with the pirate, but before any of them could make a move, a voice spoke up. It was Lan over the pirate's radio-earring, yelling loud enough for all three of them to hear. 

"Daro! Khali! Stop whatever you're doing and head back to the drop ship! I've got what we came for!". Daro gave them a look that seem to say "This is your lucky day" before cautiously heading out the front door of the mercantile. 

*** 

She couldn't keep this up forever she realized as tried casting another Tao spell. Khali was wearing herself out dodging Aisha, recognizing that she was no match for her brute strength and her advantage in speed was diminishing. The Ctarl Ctarl had the piratess cornered in the alley immediately outside the Mercantile when she heard Lan's orders over the radio. Khali blinked and opened her eyes just in time to see Aisha's fist. She ducked her head just in time, and the Ctarl Ctarl's fist buried itself in the alley's brick wall behind her, a fraction of an inch away from Khali's left temple. The Tao-mistress was in agony and her face felt like it was on fire. Aisha was more than willing to put her out of her misery, if only Khali would just hold still. Instead, Khali started running past her. Aisha lunged after her, falling to the ground and grabbing her ankle. The piratess hit the ground hard and immediately fished out the pouch of emerald powder that she earlier used to blind Aisha. Recognizing that tactic, Aisha held her forearm in front of her eyes as Khali blew the powder. 

"This isn't over, you bitch!" the piratess screeched angrily. "PAGU-WA-SUN-BA....!" there was a spray of white steam and then nothing. 

Aisha lowered her arm and looked around. Khali had vanished before she could finish the wounded Tao-mistress off. 

*** 

Jim heard the loud crack of rifle fire as he slowly got to his feet. He saw a deputy standing a few feet away, aiming a rifle at something. It was the pirate they had just saw, running off. He was carrying something over his shoulder. To his horror, Jim realized that it was Melfina. As the deputy lined the pirate up in his sights, he felt something tug at the barrel of the rifle. He looked down and saw Jim was grabbing onto the barrel with both hands, almost as if he were trying to do a pull-up on it. 

"Stop it!" Jim angrily yelled. "You'll hit Melfina!" 

"Don't interfere, kid!" Huntsman yelled back at him, trying to shake his grip on the barrel "and don't underestimate me..." 

Gene slowly got up to his feet. "What happened?" he groggily asked. 

"Aniki! They've got Melfina!" Jim relaxed his grip on the barrel. 

"WHAT?!" Gene's eyes were now wide open. He stooped over and picked up his Caster Gun "Come on Jim- we've got...." his words were cut off as he was looking down the barrel of a rifle. 

"Nobody's going anywhere- now put the gun down!" Huntsman retorted angrily. Gene looked up and saw that he was surrounded by Huntsman and the 5 deputized O'Riley brothers, all armed and looking for some sort of payback.


	5. Fair Barter

"Impressive bit of weaponry" Hasek commented as he held Gene's Caster aloft. 

Gene did nothing but glare at the one-armed sheriff. Next to him were Suzuka, Aisha and Jim. They looked more like unruly students who were sent to the principal's office rather than the dangerous convicts the O'Riley brothers insisted they were. After decomissioning them and having them turn in their weapons, Hasek sent the O'Riley brothers back to the mines. 

He placed the empty Caster on top of his desk, just out of Gene's reach. "....and what can you tell me about this?" he asked as he held a small plastic vial filled with the tiny chips of dragonite that they had managed to dredge from the lake's surface. 

"Are you going to charge us or what?" Jim asked defiantly 

"That depends on some of your answers." He reached beneath his desk and pulled out his detatched, mangled prosthetic arm, placing it on the desk."What am I supposed to do about this?" 

Aisha grinned a little bit sheepishly. She had the perfect answer, but her telling the sheriff exactly what she thought he should do with his cyber-prosthetic wouldn't help matters that much. She thought it would be best to keep quiet altogether. 

"I could...." Jim started to say. 

"And believe me, I'm VERY interested in knowing exactly where you got this." He interrupted, rattling the vial of dragonite chips. 

"And what exactly is it worth to you?" Suzuka asked. She noticed that Gene was exceptionally quiet for this sort of situation. Each second they were wasting with the lawman, the pirates were getting further and further away with Melfina. Considering the treatment they had recieved from Hasek and his deputies, the four of them were being exceptionally polite. 

"It could be worth your freedom." the sherriff said. 

Suzuka edged forward a little bit, non-verbally challenging the sheriff. Hasek didn't take the bait. 

"I can repair your arm if you'll let us go." Jim offered. 

The sheriff chuckled slightly. "It goes a little beyond that, kid." 

"So extortion's your game?" Suzuka asked. 

"HAH! More like reciprocity. IF you can fix my arm and tell me where you got the dragonite, then I'll consider dropping the charges against you." 

"You mean the charges you made up." Jim dourly replied. 

"My, aren't you the young cynic?" 

"Reciprocity? Cynic? Those are big words, sheriff." Suzuka cooly chimed in. Hasek could only chuckle weakly and his response were angry glares from the four outlaws. 

"Ok then, if you can fix my arm and tell me more about the dragonite, you can take your ship and be on your merry little way and give law-enforcement ulcers in some other part of the universe." 

"Not good enough." Gene finally spoke up. 

"Why's that?" Hasek asked. As far as extortion went, that was a reasonable offer. 

"The pirates kidnapped our navigator, we can't get home without her." he said, without betraying any of the remorse that was eating away at him. 

"Hey now, I had that fruity pirate in my sights when he had to butt in!" Huntsman defensively yelled before taking a sip of coffee and pointing at Jim. 

"You would've hit Mel...." 

"Dammit kid- I'm the best shot on this planet, I wouldn't have...." 

"Great- you're the only one on this planet who isn't so inbred that they're cross-eyed! That doesn't make you a crack shot!" 

Hasek was caught off-guard and found himself laughing out loud at Jim's impudence. This was certainly the oddest group in recent memory to set foot on Anaconda, to say the least. 

*** 

Melfina was lying unconcious on her back, still in her skirt and blouse. Her ankles and wrists were strapped to the edge of the table but it was unlikely she would regain conciousness. That was just a precaution. A wire led from the base of her neck to a little computer in Lan's palm. The small node in Melfina's neck was designed to look like a mole or birthmark- this was another invaluable bit of information they gleaned from hacking into Prof. Khan's database. Daro stood quietly above them, watching the proceedings. 

"Looks like she has a thing for the red-haired Outlaw". Melfina's life experiences ever since waking up in that barn back in Sentinel were now showing up on the monitor of Lan's computer as encrypted bits of data. 

"Aww....isn't that cute? The little doll has a heart." Khali said, roughly fondling Melfina's right breast. The piratess frowned a little bit. It wasn't any fun if she didn't resist. "And what about the XGP?" she asked impatiently. 

"I'm trying to get to that. There's a lot of perephrial information to go through to get to it." 

"Can't you delete it?" Khali asked. 

"I could, but then we'd risk losing all of the information she has on the XGP and the Leiline." If she is indeed the maiden of the Leiline, he said to himself. "Give me twenty minutes and I should be able to retrive enough data to set up a trap for the others." After going through some more data, he matter of factly announced "Did you know that planet we just got off of has Dragonite?". 

"Ask me if I care. What's the XGP's location?" 

"Hasn't even left the surface yet. How badly do you want the Outlaw and his ship?" he asked, wondering how she'd react if the XGP was damaged beyond reapir from the ambush. 

"Very badly." Khali growled. She ran her finger over the healing burn on the side of her face while eyeing her brother, rendered mute by a single blow from the white-haired Ctarl Ctarl. "I want the Outlaw and all of his friends." 

*** 

In theory, there was nothing preventing them from walking out of Hasek's office. Every second they negotiated for their release was one more second Melfina was getting further away from them. Suzuka and Aisha could've easily taken out the deputies while Gene and Hasek could've settled things mano-a-mano. It wasn't some long dormant gentleman's instinct on Gene's part that was telling him it wouldn't be fair to pick a fight with a cripple, either. He had a feeling that there may be some sort of purpose to this delay. 

"OK, you get your gun back, walk out of here free...er..." Hasek paused, looking at Aisha ".....people and you can start looking for your navigator once you repair my arm and tell me more about the dragonite you found." 

His only response was the group shaking their heads almost collectively. He sighed as he tossed Jim his severed arm, hoping the lad would start working on it. Instead, he paused and looked as though he was going to hand it back to him. 

"All right- answer me this then. Did the Dragonite come from anywhere on Anaconda?" 

Jim silently nodded. 

"Hot damn!" the sheriff triumphantly said to nobody in particular as he opened up his desk drawer and pulled out a bottle of vodka. As Hasek pulled the cork out with his teeth, Gene swore heard something roll around in the drawer and caught a glimpse of what looked like a Caster shell. 

"What's that?" He asked. 

"Huh? These?" the sheriff pulled a #7 shell out of the drawer. "Ammunition of some sort- I'm not really sure. A few years back, a Silgry transport crashed at the spaceport. It was pretty bad- nothing really survived the explosion. But I found some of these on the ground afterwards." he pulled out another shell- a #16- and placed it next to the #7 "I've never really seen anything quite like these...." he started to say. Then he got a good look at the Caster and realized it's dimensions were suited to chamber the mysterious shells lined up on his desk. He protectively snatched them away before Gene could get a closer look. Hasek didn't want to lose any bargaining chips. 

"Of course! Mana......Old Magic. Unbelieveable! A few weeks after that crash, I found out that the transport's point of origin was from Planet Tenrei. I didn't think much of it at the time. This whole time I thought it was just a myth- Wizards, Casters and Spell Guns!" 

"You've heard of that? How many of those did you find?" Gene asked. The pirate they encountered at Anaconda's spaceport was right- Old Magic does show up in some interesting places. 

"Couldn't have been more than ten of 'em. I'm not sure how well they'd work, though. The ones I found survived the explosion OK, but they were soaking in puddles of water and flame-retardant for a few days. They wouldn't have done me much good in any case. There's nothing in our arsenal but your run-of-the-mill ballisitc weapons. Before today, I hadn't even seen a Caster". He paused, thinking out loud. "Somebody on that ship must've been trying to smuggle them back to the Silgry homeworld." 

Gene produced a second vial of Dragonite from the pocket of his cloak. "We'll give you all of the Dragonite we've unearthed so far for those shells." 

"NGYAA...?" Aisha asked, her jaw slack. 

He tossed the vial of dragonite to the sherriff. Hasek wasted no time in producing a magnifying monocole from another desk drawer- Gene was pretty sure he heard some more loose Caster shells rolling around the drawer. 

"Remember....I'm not just the sheriff, I'm also the assesor." He said. After putting the Dragonite from the second vial under some scrutiny, Hasek let our a long whistle of admiration. "OK, just a cursory glance, but this right here is no less than 80% pure. Quality stuff that could fetch a good price no matter what the market." 

"It's yours." Gene said 

"And the catch?" 

"Depends. How many of those shells do you have on you?" 

*** 

Melfina opened her eyes, but only the dimmest of light was visible. She tried bringing her hand to her forehead, but no luck. Her ankles and wrists were still restrained. 

"Welcome back, Melfina." a sinister voice spoke up. 

"Wh...where am I? Who are you?" she asked groggily. 

Khali stepped out of the shadows. "My- you're full of questions today, aren't you?" 

"What do you want with me?" 

The piratess chuckled softly. "Power. Revenge. Immortality. Everything the Leiline has to offer. And you're going to help me find it, Melfina." 

A horrible sensation came over the bio-android. Gene, Jim, Hilda, Aisha, Suzuka, Gillium and even poor misguided Harry; none of them were real. It was all some sort of dream she had while being kept in stasis. A vivid, strange and enigmatic dream, but one where she felt wanted and appreciated. However, the dream was over and this was her new reality. She knew that wasn't true, but she couldn't completely banish the thought, either. 

"I won't help you." she said, her voice unwavering. 

"Brave talk for a girl strapped to a table. You make it sound like you have a say in the matter." 

Mel said nothing. There was a low mechanical hum as the table that Melfina was tethered to rose and she now caught a glimpse of a clear glass tube filled with a translucent gel in front of her. It was similar to the one on the Outlaw Star except it was bigger and looked like it was fixed in that location instead of being able to sink into the floor. 

"What is that?" 

"Your new home. We worked very hard on it." Khali said. 

"I won't get in there." 

"Aren't you the defiant little puppet?" Khali said as she stepped in undid the top button of Melfina's blouse. Mel tried in vain to pull away. "I'm going to enjoy breaking you." 

"Stop it...." 

"You really like the Outlaw, don't you? What would you say if we could delete all memories of him from your system in no more than two minutes? Hmm?" Khali whispered into her ear. 

Melfina chose not to dignify that with a response. Khali continued resumed unbuttoning Mel's blouse. Mel did nothing, since she knew she was powerless and sensed that resisting would only further entice her captor. She wasn't going to tell Melfina, but Khali wanted the Maiden of the Leiline to grant her fondest wish. It wasn't power, and it wasn't riches. She wanted it so that she and Daro would be the only two people in the universe. Forever with her lover/brother and nobody to interfere or diapprove of their union. And Melfina was the key to that blissful eternity with her beloved Daro, she could almost taste it. 

"KHALI!" 

The piratess turned around. Lan was standing a few feet behind her. "What do you think you're doing?" 

"I was just prepping Melfina for the tank." she lied unapologetically. 

"Right." the pirate said skeptically. "The last thing we need is to have her awake on the bridge". All this time spent tracking down the XGP and the Maiden of the Leiline would be wasted if Khali got careless and kept using the bio-android as a plaything. 

"Mmm...well, those clothes of hers have to come off some time." she said as she reluctantly took a few steps away from Melfina. Lan stepped up next to the bio-android. 

"It was you who broke my mason plate." he quietly murmured, loud enough for Mel to hear, but too quiet for Khali to understand. Almost gladly, Melfina was plunged into darkness. 

*** 

Hasek handed over the Caster shells in exchange for the second vial of dragonite. It turned out he recovered eight differnet shells from the crash site. Another cursory glance revaled that this was as good as the first batch. The dumbfounded sheriff couldn't believe his luck- close to one million wong in unrefined dragonite in exchange for some old, obscure and most likely useless ammunition. At least it was useless to him, he mused as he was mesmerized by the purple gleam of the precious stones. 

Jim raised his goggles and looked up from the prosthetic arm that he had been working on with a feeling of deja-vu. 

"....and you're not the least bit interested in where we found that?" Jim asked. 

"Huh? No, not really...." Hasek said. This was met with skeptical glares from the four of them. 

"You don't expect us to believe that...." the assassin started to say 

Hasek cut her off. "Huntsman!" he yelled out "open a line to the Symka 8 trading post and order as much prospecting and mining equipment as this will buy. Then have this couriered out as payment." he held up the 2 vials of dragonite. "Even if you gave me the most accurate directions, I could spend the rest of my life up there looking for Dragonite and not make a single crown." he explained to the outlaws. 

"But if you went ahead and purchased an abundant supply of mining equipment with unrefined dragonite as payment, word would spread very fast and you could start your own dragonite rush right here.....very shrewd, I must admit." Suzuka said. 

"Not to mention I could sell the equipment to the prospectors who show up here for at least triple what I paid for it." 

"OK, try it now." Jim said as he handed back the sheriff his prosthetic arm. Hasek gingerly reattatched it and then alternated between spreading out his fingers and making a fist. It worked quite nicely, but there was a loud mechanical whirring as he did this. 

"It's just a quick patch-up job, but it should last you until you can get some spare parts brought in." the boy genius cautioned. "Until then, you should add oil every other day to avoid friction." 

"Excellent." he said, using his freshly repaired prosthetic to toss a key to Gene. "That's the key to the padlock on the dock's elevator. Now get the hell off my planet." 


	6. The Slender Thread

The launch from Anaconda went off without a hitch, but tensions were high on the bridge. 

"Now what?" Aisha asked as they left the planet's orbit. 

"I'm not sure, Aisha. If you were a pirate where would you go?" Gene said. 

The Ctarl Ctarl shrugged. "The Galactic Leiline?" 

"It's likely that the pirates are monitoring our movements from a distance and preparing an ambush." Suzuka offered. 

"I doubt they'd let us slink back to Heiphong." Gene said "Besides, they know that we're one short." 

"I hate to bring this up, Gene, but how are we going to find them?" Jim turned around and asked. 

"It's probably going to be them who find us." he remembered what the thin, wispy pirate had told him back on Anaconda. 

Almost as soon as he brought that up, Gillium spoke up. 

"Pardon the interruption, but there's an incoming real-time transmission." 

Khali's scalded face appeared on the monitor. "Hello Outlaw Star. I have a message from your navigator. 'Help me Gene, please! They're doing bad things to me! Save me !'" the piratess said in a melodramatic voice. "Come and get her." she challenged them. With that, the transmission ended. 

Gene growled. "Gillium. Were you able to pinpoint where that was coming from?" 

"The transmission was too short for me to get a precise fix, but I was able to isolate it's point of origin coming from Ennis-3 system." the computer brought up a chart showing the ship's relative position. 

"What do we do now Gene? It'll be like looking for a needle in a haystack." Jim said. 

"What was that you were saying about an ambush, Suzuka?" 

*** 

Gillium was able to isolate the signal as coming from an asteroid filed at the very edge of the Ennis-3 system, but couldn't be more specific than that. They anticipated that the Necromancer would be using Tao magic to avoid detection, so they'd have to rely on random sectors being visually scanned by Gillium. Gene and Jim were doing their best to come up with a strategy. 

"I'm picking up computer activity 800km to starboard." the computer announced after what seemed like an eternity. 

As they closed in on the location, all of them could see the Necromancer. It looked as though the ship had been waiting patiently for them. 

"All right then. Jim, we need to be firm but gentle." Gene said. That concept was something altogether new to him. 

"Right. Assault anchors 7 and 8 are on continuous control." 

"Fire!" 

A pair of tethered assault anchors shot out from the underbelly of the Outlaw Star and immediately found their mark. However, each of them sensed something was amiss when the anchors passed through the Necromancer and slammed into a meteor behind it. The image of the ship flickered and faded, and all that remained was a drone platform used to launch the holographic image. 

"Shit...." Gene said, realizing that this was the trap they had walked into. Not only that, they had just given away their strategy to their still-unseen enemy and were down to their last two assault anchors. 

"A hologram? The real Necromancer can't be very far." Suzuka spoke up. 

"I am not detecting any onboard computer activity, Gene. It is likely the ship that launched it is still nearby, but it's reasonable to believe that they are using a Tao field to evade detection." the computer said. 

"Jim- cut anchors NOW!" 

"Warning! Vessel closing in from 3 o'clock starboard!" Gillium warned 

Gene maneuvered the ship so that it would bank as sharply as possible. As he was doing this, 2 missiles flew by, narrowly missing the Outlaw Star and exploded after impacting with a meteor a few hundred meters behind them. The grappler arms were now deployed and the real Necromancer was looming ominously above them. 

"Jim! Launch the camera pods. Aisha, Suzuka....." Gene sighed, knowing that he could very well be asking them to kill Melfina "Stand by and prepare to fire all missiles". He wanted Melfina back more than anything, but it wouldn't be right if it meant everybody else would have to give up their lives in the process. That would be just too high of a price to pay. 

*** 

"Nice and predictable" Khali chuckled as her eyes casually roamed over Melfina's naked body inside the control tube. "Honestly, I don't know what she sees in him." 

"They're launching camera pods." Lan announced. 

"I see we have their undivided attention. Looks like they want to dance." 

"Let's see what the XGP can really do." 

Khali paused a moment before speaking up. "Try not to destroy it." she said impatiently, almost as an afterthought. 

*** 

"You wanna play you bastards? All right, then! We'll play!" Gene fired a burst from the ship's laser cannon. The Necromancer was able to deflect all of the shots with a metal shield fitted to its grappler arm. The pirate ship's other grappler arm tried closing in around the Outlaw star, but Gene saw this and held it at bay using a flail attached to the right grappler arm, knocking the pirate ship's arm out of the way. Jim fired the thrusters and tried positioning the ship so that they would be out of reach of the Necromancer's arms and maybe be able to get a few shots in past the pirate vessel's shields. Ordinarily, that would be one of Melfina's functions. It served to remind all of them how sorely missed she was so soon after her absence. 

A dozen or so missiles flew from the Necromancer towards the Outlaw Star. 

"Warning! Multiple missiles incoming." Gillium warned. 

"Launching anti-missiles!" Jim said, with more than a hint of urgency. 

Four small rockets flew from the Outlaw Star and exploded in front of the cluster of missiles fired from the pirate ship. Most of the missiles detonated, while the remainder of them flew off course, spinning out of control and into a large asteroid where they harmlessly exploded. 

Gene wanted to swap weapons on the grappler arms, but realized that doing so would leave them vulnerable to another attack from the Necromancer. The Necromancer had the advantage in size and raw power while the XGP had the advantage of speed, even in close quarters. It looked like the two ships had reached a stalemate. 

** 

"My! This has been fun." Khali said to nobody in particular. "I have to say that I wasn't expecting such a spirited fight from them." 

"Any recommendations on how we finish this?" Lan asked. 

"Hmmm......I don't know." Khali said, walking over to Melfina's tube. "Do you have any ideas , Melfina?" she pressed her ear against the tube "Really?" the Tao-mistress gasped. "You think that will work...........? They won't be expecting it?" 

The bio-android remained silent, floating in her tube with her eyes closed. The small wire leading from her neck was still downloading encrypted data from the bio-android's memory bank, and since her personality functions were still suspended, there was no way she could interact with Khali even if she wanted to. Lan found the Tao-mistress' preoccupation with Melfina bordering on the disturbing. 

"That's brilliant, Melfina!" Khali gleefully squealed as she kissed the side of the tank. She turned around and said to Lan. "She says it's time we start using the XGP's tactics against it." 

** 

After the sustained and unexpected pause in the battle, nobody on board the Outlaw Star counted on what happened next as the Necromancer fired it's own assault anchors. They slammed into the Outlaw Star's hull and the whole ship trembled slightly. 

"What the hell was that?" Aisha asked 

"Whatever it was, it can't be good." Jim said. 

"Warning!" Gillium announced, almost as if to answer Aisha's query. "I'm being penetrated by a virus. I'll have to shut down now." 

"Oh no!" Jim said worriedly. "This is bad, you guys! The pirate ship has already taken over control of weapons, communications and life-support. What about the grappler arms, Gene?" 

"Nothing doing." Gene sighed as he removed the eyepiece. 

The monitor flickered to life and the pirate Lan spoke up. "And that's just the beginning, Gene Starwind!" 

"You again?" 

"You're that bastard who took Melfina!" Jim yelled out angrily. 

"I wouldn't resort to name-calling if I was in your position, boy!" Lan snarled. 

"Gene Starwind?" an eager, feminine voice spoke up from the other end. Khali appeared next to Lan on the monitor. "I have to say, I'm a little bit disappointed. The man most certainly doesn't match his reputation. Why the bio-android thinks so highly of you, I'll never understand." 

"What have you done with Melfina?" Gene asked. 

"The maiden? She's just fine." Khali grinned as they positioned the monitor so they could see Mel floating unconscious and naked in the tube. "I think we'll be holding onto her for a little while. You like it? You know, even though two people can fit inside there. It's very..........cozy." 

"She's proven most useful, I have to say." Lan spoke up again. "You're where you are right now because of the information Melfina's given us." 

"Melfina wouldn't give you anything and you know it!" Aisha snapped. The pirates had the upper hand and could kill them any time, but they wanted each of them to die convinced that Melfina had betrayed them. They wanted them to die believing their lies. 

"SHUT UP YOU STUPID ANIMAL!!! You fucking bitch, I told you it wasn't over between us. Nobody treats my brother like that and gets away with it! Now you get to watch all of your little friends die!" the Tao-mistress furiously spat at Aisha through the monitor, very much losing her composure. 

"A coward's victory..." Suzuka said through clenched teeth. 

"Believe me, Suzuka, Aisha- nothing would make me happier than killing you two with my bare hands, but I'll have to settle for this instead. I'm sure even a C'tarl C'tarl can't breathe in space." 

Lan looked at Khali. "If you'd like, I can blow off the hatches. That would flush out the vermin from the XGP. Or....we could cut off the oxygen. That would take a little longer, though." 

"Cut off the oxygen- please. I don't want to see any of them die quickly. It really is a shame we can only kill them once." 


	7. Lost and Found

Jim's lungs were burning and his mind was racing. He knew that Aisha was right- Melfina would never give out any information to the pirates that she knew could be used against the Outlaw Star- at least as long as she had a say in the matter. In fact, Melfina didn't even look like she was awake, just like when Gwen Khan used a command code to suspend her personality functions. But there was a code phrase that restored it, also. He knew it- he was there when Melfina was reactivated. If these pirates had used the same code to shut her down, then maybe he could reactivate Mel. But only if he remembered the code. Something about an early meal and silverware. 

"Melfina" Jim yelled out in desperation "Breakfast is served with a silver spoon!" 

Through the monitor, they saw that Melfina's eyes were now open and her personality functions were re-activated. 

"Wh....where am I?" she asked quietly. Within a few seconds, Mel had answered her own question by sifting through the pirate ship's database. 

"NO!" a horrified Lan yelled. This was the worst case scenario. If she regained her personality functions while in the Necromancer's control tube, there's no telling what kind of damage she could inflict. How could the Outlaws possibly know that command code? Khali should've killed them all while she had the chance. 

"Mel....." Gene gasped. The bio-android's eyes widened in terror as she saw thought the screen her savior, protector and beloved drawing his final breath. 

"Leiline Project command: It was you who br-" Lan started to speak up. He was interrupted by the deafening screech of feedback from the ship's speaker consoles. She was doing her best to mimic the noise that greeted them when they first entered the galactic Leiline by using the Necromancer's internal communication systems. Melfina had wasted no time in sabotaging the ship's other systems and cast an uncharacteristically hateful gaze at the pirate who kidnaped her. He had passed up the opportunity to rape or physically molest her- at least for the time being. But going through her intimate and personal thoughts like that was much worse. She felt even more violated. 

"WHAT'S HAPPENING? THAT NOISE- WHAT IS IT?" Khali screamed as she was doubled over in agony, her hands unsuccessfully trying to block out the high-pitched noise. 

Melfina turned her attention to the Outlaw Star. Aisha was quietly moaning in agony, since her ears could pick up the noise Mel had created almost as well as anybody on the pirate ship. Sensing this, she filtered out the noise and spoke. 

"Gene, Jim. You should have control of the Outlaw Star's life-support, communications, propulsion and weapons systems now. I'm working on bringing Gillium back on line." 

"Melfina?" Gene asked, still dazed from the lack of air. His Sleeping beauty was awake and very much in control now. Was this some sort of hallucination in his final moments? He inhaled deeply and realized he wasn't dreaming up anything as the oxygen hit his lungs. 

"Once Gillium's back on line, I'll cut the anchors. Don't hold back...." the bio-android said. 

"Mel- what are you....?" Aisha asked quietly. None of them liked the sound of what she was saying. 

"The pirate ship is defenseless for now, but you'll have to hit it with everything you've got after I bring back Gillium. Don't give them another chance to kill you." 

"There's no way in hell we're leaving without you, Melfina." Gene said. Jim and Aisha in particular nodded their heads emphatically in agreement. 

"It's too risky!" Melfina warned. However, she knew it was futile to try and talk Gene out of something once he set his mind to it. From what she saw through the monitor, Suzuka and Aisha were getting ready to join him. 

"I'll see you in a few minutes Mel." Gene said with his usual bravado. "Jim! End transmission!" 

The screen went blank. 

** 

"No sense in broadcasting our plans to the enemy." Gene said to the others. "Jim, what's the ships weapons status?" 

"Looking pretty good. Full compliment of missiles, lasers are still 87% charged, the grappler arms have the straight razor and flail.....and get this; would you believe that Fred was nice enough to include one of Izhmash's new 25mm ass-kickers as part of our inventory?" 

"Really? How many clips?" 

"Five twenty-round clips." 

"I guess nothing's too good for the Luo Enterprises' unofficial pack-mules....." Gene pondered 

"Yeah, especially when we're supposed to be hauling dragonite around." 

Gene had forgotten all about the dragonite, but it didn't matter to him. All that mattered now was getting Melfina back. Getting her back and never letting her out of his sight again. Amazing how his priorities had changed since meeting Melfina. He absently slid a #7 shell into his Caster. 

"Jim- get ready to move in and fire the assault bolt. We're going in." He slammed the breech of his Caster shut. Suzuka sheathed her bokken and Aisha eagerly cracked her knuckles. 

"What's the plan Gene?" 

"Walk on in and make them wish they'd never been born." 

** 

Daro stormed onto the bridge, covering his ears. The deafening, screeching noise was emanating throughout the whole ship. It had to be the bioandroid that was doing this, there was no other explanation. His beautiful sister was writhing in agony on the floor. This was too much for him to stand. First the Ctarl Ctarl that was with the outlaws scalded her lovely face and now the bioandroid had reduced her to a whimpering, helpless heap on the floor. Incompetents like Lan deserved to wallow on the ground like that, but not his precious, delicate sister. 

The bioandroid was now wide awake and looking at Daro from the control tube. Something was different about her. She was completely unafraid. However, Daro was now operating on pure rage, and the shrieking noise that was emanating through the ship was no louder than a gnat buzzing across a room as far as he was concerned. He took a step towards Melfina's tube. 

"If you come any closer, I'll blow all of the hatches off of this ship!" Melfina cautioned 

The mute pirate didn't take her threat seriously. 

"Do you think I'm bluffing? You were going to use me to do the same thing to my friends." Melfina didn't actually remember being given the instructions, yet there were still traces of the commands in her memory from when her personality functions were suspended. Daro knew that she wasn't bluffing because it occurred to him that she could open all of the hatches and airlocks long enough for the whole crew to get sucked out into space, and she wouldn't even need to breathe while she was in the tube- it was self-sustaining. There was only one way to remedy that, Daro thought. He picked up a heavy chair and threw it at the tube. Melfina flinched as the chair bounced off of her tube and left behind an intricate spiderweb of cracks on the glass. As the chair impacted with the glass, the noise Melfina had created suddenly stopped and the bridge was filled with the metallic clattering of the chair hitting the floor. There was a deafening silence on the bridge. Lan and Khali looked at each other in bewilderment, their ears ringing as Daro and Melfina simply continued glaring at each other. Melfina now focused her energy on purging the pirate's virus from Gillium's system. 

The mute pirate went over to where the chair had fallen, and as he was getting ready to pick it up and throw it again, the whole ship rocked. 

** 

"Assault bolt in place!" Jim confirmed. 

There was a quiet high-pitched whirring as one of the pink Gillium-cans slid along its rail and into the cockpit. 

"Oh my." It declared, surveying the scene inside the bridge. "How long have I been offline?" 

"Long enough." Jim said. 

"Where is Melfina?" it asked. 

"She'll be here soon enough." Suzuka spoke up. 

"All right then Jim. We're going over!" Gene said. 

"You Terrans talk way too much. Let's get going already!" Aisha said, cracking her knuckles and brimming over with her usual confidence. "Look after everything while we're away, will ya Jimmy?" the Ctarl Ctarl asked as she looked behind her and waved good-bye to Jim over her shoulder. She looked as casual and relaxed as if she were going out for groceries while heading down the corridor leading to the umbilicus with Suzuka. 

"Don't I always?" he smiled back at her. 

"One more thing Jim, Gillium" Gene spoke up before joining them. "If the pirates are able to launch their fighters, hit 'em with everything we've got. We'll be back soon." 

"You got it..." Jim said, giving him the thumbs-up. 

** 

Daro glared at Melfina and decided he didn't need the chair to smash open the tube. He strode purposefully towards the tube containing the bio-android. 

"What do we do now?" Khali asked Lan rather loudly, both of their ears still ringing from the noise. 

"She's not going to blow the hatches now, not with her friends on board." Lan spoke up. 

"Lan, prep one of the suits, take some men and get ready to greet our guests!" she said as the thin pirate took his leave. "Get her out of there!" Khali angrily hissed at her brother. 

Daro didn't need any prompting from her. His fist smashed through the tube and his arm wrapped around the protesting bioandroid as he none-too-gently dragged her out of the tube. The broken glass cut and sliced away at Melfina's mid-section as he pulled her out. 

"If nothing else, we still have our bargaining chip." 

** 

"How quaint." Suzuka commented on the interior of the Necromancer as she stepped out of the assault bolt. They were in one of the ship's dimly lit and cavernous loading bays. Two pirates inside the bay were startled by their presence, but Suzuka made quick work of them with her sword. 

"Where do we go from here?" Aisha asked 

"I'm not sure." Gene said "Can you get Mel's scent?" 

The Ctarl Ctarl shook her head "no" after sniffing the air for a moment. 

"Then we'll just have to stop and ask for directions." he said, approaching one of the pirates that Suzuka had knocked down. The pirate was slowly trying to get back on his feet. After getting a closer look, none of them recognized the pirates as the ones they saw in Anaconda. These looked more like lower-echelon worker pirates. Gene roughly grabbed him. 

"How do we get to the bridge?" he demanded. 

"Go to hell.....I'm not saying......." the pirate started to say, but he was interrupted by a burst of machine gun fire and bullets clanging off the wall. Gene, Suzuka and Aisha scattered as Lan tried picking them off one by one with the machine gun on his mechanized suit. It was the exact same design as the ones that attempted to recapture the XGP on Sentinel-3. Behind the outlaws, a dozen of the Kei pirate ninjas were approaching. The worker pirate had fallen next to Aisha, but he didn't stay on the ground for very long. Aisha picked him up over her head and like a barrel, tossed him towards the approaching ninjas. About ten of them went down in a heap. Bullets from Lan's suit flew around her head like angry hornets, but dodged the gunfire and dove behind the relative safety of a shuttlecraft that was being kept under a tarp. 

Suzuka noticed chain attached to a winch that was secured to a sliding metal door leading into the cargo bay. As Lan was busy firing at the Ctarl Ctarl, Suzuka stood up and used one of her secret techniques on the chain that held the door in place from several yards away. There was a short but strong gust of wind from the assassin's sword as the winch began spinning on it's own and the door slid down. Before it could close completely, two of the ninjas had stood underneath it and was trying to keep it open long enough for the other pirates to slip inside. Suzuka thought she'd have to close in and take care of this problem herself, but Gene took care of that when he stood up and fired a #19 shell from his Caster. It hit one of the Kei ninjas and he flew backwards in a brilliant blue-white explosion which was partially obscured from them as the door slid down further. But the other ninja had still managed to keep the door from closing completely. Gene put his Caster on the floor and drew his traditional pistol before emptying the entire clip into the ninja. A blackish-red ichor spurted from the bullet holes and the ninja collapsed as the door slammed shut. The Outlaw stood up long enough for Lan to line him up in the sights, but the mechanical whirring of the sighting device tipped Gene off. He was able to activate his light shield as Lan fired another burst.. The bullets were stopped by the thin layer of white light, and Gene scooped up his Caster as he dove for cover. 

"Shit!" Lan whispered. It was just him and the suit against the Outlaws. The odds were pretty even, but pirates detested a fair fight. 

** 

"Systems check, Gillium." Jim asked, mostly to occupy his time during the waiting game. 

"All systems functioning normally" 

"Any activity from the pirate ship?" 

"I am unable to determine at this time." 

Jim wrung his hands and sighed. He knew that this was the calm before an even bigger storm and for the time being, he was on his own. 

** 

Lan tried tracking the three of them with the mecha's sighting device, but that wasn't working- not on all three of them. He realized that the lumbering mecha wasn't suited for close-quarter combat. He figured his best bet was to fire a volley of grenades behind the crates he saw the Outlaw run behind. Before he could fire, he heard what sounded like footsteps on top of the suit. 

"SHIT!" he yelled out as a wooden blade sliced through the top of the suit, narrowly missing him. 

Suzuka pried the hatch off of the suit and locked the pirate in her cold, steely gaze. 

"Paguwa-sun-ba!" Lan yelled out in desperation while trying to stand up as much as the interior of the suit would allow him. A ball of blue-green lightning shot from his palm. Suzuka easily dodged it, landing gracefully on top of a nearby stack of crates. 

The suit's weapons systems were still functioning normally, so Lan tried lining up Suzuka in his sights. Before he could get a lock on her, Lan felt the suit shake and rattle. Beneath him, Aisha wrapped her arms around the mecha's right leg and was lifting and pushing with all of her strength. Within a few seconds, the suit started to topple and fall backwards. Before Lan could correct the suit and take care of Aisha, the suit shuddered again and there was a bright, blinding flash. Gene had shot out the eyepiece of the suit with a #16 shell from his Caster, one of the older ones he obtained from Hasek. As the giant suit hit the floor, Lan was thrown clear of the hatch. He rubbed his head and as he looked up, he found himself looking down the barrel of Gene's Caster. Behind him, Suzuka leapt down from the stack of crates and Aisha was climbing over the fallen mecha suit that was blocking her path. He was surrounded. 

"You have three seconds to tell us where Melfina is...." Gene said. "One....two......" 

** 

"Oh my...." Gillium said, as close to sounding dismayed as his programming would allow 

"What is it Gil?" the boy genius asked. 

"It may be nothing but.....the connection Melfina has established with us from the pirate ship has now been terminated." 

Jim climbed into the pilot's chair and put on the eyepiece that Gene used for grappler combat. There was a look of concern on his face. 

"OK Gillium. You're going to have to walk me through this." 

"Certainly, Jim. What is it you need to do?" 

"I want to cut the anchors coming from the pirate ship." 

"I see..." the computer automatically selected the straight-razor from the ship's grappler combat arsenal and tried feeding the best possible view from the camera pods to the eyepiece. "One clean move should be sufficient." 

Jim grabbed the control lever and slowly moved the arm with the straight-razor back and forth, getting the feel of maneuvering it. Then he slashed it sideways, severing the cables from the Necromancer's assault anchors that had attached themselves to the Outlaw Star in one clean move. Now he could see why Gene enjoyed this so much. 

*** 

Gene roughly shoved Lan through the doorway and onto the pitch-black bridge. The outlaw had been in enough of these scrapes to know that they were walking into a trap. Better to have the pirate go first, he thought to himself. Almost as soon as he thought that, Gene felt something fly across the bridge, narrowly missing him and hitting the pirate. As his eyes were starting to adjust to the darkness, he saw that Lan was clutching his throat, with the hilt of a knife sticking out. Blood trickled from the wound and he collapsed on the floor, dead. Instinctively, Gene pulled a grenade from his overcoat and threw it in the direction where the knife came from. 

"Cover your eyes." he quietly warned Suzuka and Aisha a split-second before the grenade went off. It wasn't a fragmentary or concussion grenade, but a phosphorous grenade that burned a bright light and could flush out any enemies that were hiding in the shadows. As the grenade detonated and burned a bright blue-white light, the trio saw Daro step back, holding Melfina out in front of him. There was a series of scratches and cuts across her naked body. 

"Congratulations, you just killed your own man." Gene said. 

"So be it. Lan outlived his usefulness to us ten minutes ago." a voice above them spoke up. 

Aisha looked up just in time to see Khali jump down from the rafters above the bridge and land almost on top of her and knocking her slightly off balance. As Aisha was trying to recover, Khali had a dagger in each hand and was simultaneously trying to sink them into each of Aisha's ears using a sweeping thrust with both hands- she knew the ears were one of the few weak spots of the Ctarl Ctarl. The piratess smiled triumphantly until she saw that Aisha had blocked her thrust by keeping her forearms rigid on each side in front of her. Each blade stopped just shy of the inside of the cat-girl's pointy ears. The two of them glared at each other... 

"You managed to mask your scent. Not bad.......!" Aisha said, almost as if this were a game to her. She inhaled and hissed softly as Khali was trying to summon just a little more strength to sink the daggers home into her ears. 

"........but not good enough!" She growled, getting in the last word and letting the piratess know she was now deadly serious. The Ctarl Ctarl rammed her forehead into Khali's face with surprising ferocity and the piratess let out a startled groan as she dropped both knives and her hands flew to her face instinctively. Blood was now gushing through Khali's fingers as Aisha kept her close and roughly kneed her in the stomach. "The problem is, your stink is all over this ship." Aisha informed the piratess as she dropped to the floor. 

Daro tightened his grip on Melfina. He was close to choking her. Suzuka and Aisha looked at the two of them and then at Khali, who was semi-conscious at their feet. 

You and your collection, big brother the two remembered overhearing Khali saying to him. Ordinarily, a proud Ctarl Ctarl or disciplined assassin would never resort to taking a hostage, but in Khali's case they would gladly make an exception. Aisha roughly picked up the Tao-mistress by the scruff of her neck as Suzuka held the blade of her bokken against Khali's throat. 

"I propose a simple trade." the assassin said to Khali's brother. The pirate slightly loosened his grip on Melfina. "Your sister for our navigator." 

** 

"Warning!" Gillium spoke up "Enemy vessel is launching cub-fighters- count, many." 

Prior to that rude awakening, Jim was sitting in the pilot's chair and idly daydreaming about flying the ship wherever he wanted to and fighting off all sorts of vicious pirates, mercenaries and Outlaws. 

"Ah, shit!" he yelped "....uhhh OK. Gillium, bring up the 25mm cannon." 

The right grappler arm produced a machine pistol about the size of a small automobile that was stowed in the underbelly of the ship. Already, nearly a half-dozen ships were emerging . Jim pulled the trigger on the grappler arm, and the initial burst of shots went well to the right of the Necromancer. The enemy fighters continued advancing as Jim adjusted. Another burst of fire and one of the cub fighters exploded. Jim emptied out the cannon just as there was an explosion from the tube where the fighters had emerged- one of the cannon's High Explosive rounds had found it's mark. The boy genius correctly assumed that the Necromancer would be unable launch any more fighters, but he didn't have time to celebrate. There were still four more fighters heading his way, and he couldn't budge an inch without severing the assault bolt and leaving the others stranded on the pirate ship. 

"Gillium, Fire missiles!" 

A volley of missiles flew from the Outlaw Star. The cub fighters tried turning at the last second to avoid them, but it was too late. They were each destroyed in a series of explosions. 

"Damn it! That was close." the boy genius said after wiping his brow "How does Gene do it?" he wondered out loud. 

"Easily- just ask anybody here." the Outlaw bragged. While Jim was busy trying to figure out how to fight off the cub fighters, Gene, Suzuka, and Aisha had returned from the Necromancer and brought Mel with them. She was wrapped up in Gene's cloak and looked somewhat disheveled. 

"Mel! Welcome back!" Jim said as his eyes lit up. 

"It's good to be back, but I still have work to do." She replied in an uncharacteristically businesslike tone as the tube popped up from the floor with a mechanical whooshing. The bio-android shed Gene's cloak and the boy genius' facial expression changed to great concern when he saw the scars zig-zagging along her midsection. Suzuka and Aisha returned to their station on the port and starboard side of the ship while Melfina stepped into the tube and reappeared suspended in the translucent gel behind all of them. 

Immediately, diagrams of the Necromancer appeared on the viewscreens in throughout the ship. Certain areas of the ship were outlined with a red circle. 

"These are the weak spots on the pirate ship- what's our armament status?" she asked. 

"We have the pistol, most of our missiles and the laser cannon." Gene said as he gently ushered Jim out of the pilot's seat and brought up the weapons inventory on screen. 

"What type of munitions for the grappler pistol?" 

"Regular jacket, armor piercing and high explosive." 

Melfina brought up an enlarged section of the Necromancer's schematic on Gene's monitor. "The armor is thinner over here- a single high-explosive round could set off a series of chain reaction explosions throughout the ship. We need to do it before they're able to get their weapons back online." Despite the extensive damage she wrought on the pirate ship from inside, it was only temporary. 

"But..." Jim started to say "only one out of every fourth round in each clip is high-explosive." he said. He was the one who oversaw the loading of the munitions before leaving Heiphong. 

"One way around that...." Gene said. The grappler arm shot out and leveled towards the area of the Necromancer that Mel had highlighted and Gene lined it up through his eyepiece before pressing a button. The grappler's pistol emptied it's entire clip in no more than five seconds. For a moment, it appeared as though nothing had happened. 

"GENE!" Jim yelled "You idiot! Do you have any idea how much those things cost...." 

He was interrupted by a large, brilliant orange-white flash as the pirate vessel exploded, sending debris in nearly every direction. 

Gene grinned triumphantly and looked at Jim. The boy was awestruck at what a few well placed shots from a small grappler ship could do to a seemingly invincible ship like the Necromancer. 

"Now that's what I call money well spent!" the red-haired outlaw said. 

** 

He did the math over and over in his head. There were slight variations on his original estimates each time he tried adding it all up. Weapons, fuel, food, supplies- yet hardly anything set aside for the creature comforts. Now matter how many times he added, multiplied, subtracted and carried the four, each new total he came up with led him to the exact same inescapable conclusion. 

Jim sighed "Damn it! This whole trip has been a waste." 

"I wouldn't go so far as to say that." Suzuka spoke up. 

"Ngyaa..?" Aisha asked with a bewildered look on her face. She was about to ask Suzuka why, but she had the feeling an explanation was forthcoming. At this point, all eyes were fixed on the assassin as she was letting her hair down. The cliche about her looking like another person held true- this was the first time Gene saw her like this since yanking off her sash and unraveling her kimono during their duel outside of Hugo. She looked even more beautiful and a lot less standoff-ish and tense with her hair down. None of them immediately noticed the vial of dragonite that was previously wrapped up in a red cloth and holding up her hair. She rattled the vial of unrefined dragonite ore to get their attention. 

"I estimate that this trip has paid for itself. All Fred Luo wanted was an evaluation of the property he came into possession of, which I'm certain you're more than willing to give him. There's no reason he has to know about this, is there?" 

Simultaneously, everybody on the bridge shook their head "no". 

** 

Dinner for all of them consisted of lukewarm reheated emergency rations as they reached the halfway mark of their return course to the Heiphong system. It was tempting to go ahead and splurge on some fancy meals now that they had brought back some precious minerals, but for the time-being they had to make do with what they had. Gene and Suzuka ate their dinner in relative silence as Aisha regaled Jim with a blow-by-blow account of her heroics while on board the Necromancer. Jim feigned disinterest and skepticism at first, but before he had finished his dinner, he was hanging on her every word. If Aisha would pause for so much as five seconds to chew and swallow, Jim would try and prod her into continuing by asking "....and then what?". As she headed into her room, the bioandroid couldn't help but admire and perhaps envy the rapport the brash and vain cat-girl had built up with the boy genius. Melfina stood in front of the full-length mirror and lifted up her blouse. The cuts from being forcibly dragged out of the tube was healing nicely, but there would inevitably be some scarring. There were a few knicks and scrapes along her waist and back, and there were several smaller cuts on her right arm and neck. However, the one that had her attention was a long, slender gash that ran from just below her right breast to her belly-button. She realized that would probably never go away. 

"Knock knock." Gene said, the door to Mel's room barely slowing him down. 

Ordinarily, she would've lowered the blouse and maybe blushed a little. As much as she loved and admired Gene, she was still a little intimidated by him. However, that seemed to diminish with each passing day. Instead she continued holding it up and checking over her wounds. It's not like she wasn't wearing any underwear beneath her skirt and blouse. Even if she wasn't, it was nothing Gene or the others hadn't seen before. 

"Are you OK Mel?" he asked. 

The bio-android smiled at him. "I'm fine- want to compare battle scars?" she asked somewhat sarcastically, showing him the long cut on her belly with pride. 

Gene couldn't help but chuckle. "You're off to a good start," he said "but you've still got quite a ways to go if you wanna match my collection." 

There was a long silence as the two of them looked into each other's eyes. It was so hard to believe that the beautiful and increasingly self-confident young woman standing before him and the frightened, almost pathetic bio-android born in a suitcase on some desolate farm in Sentinel were the same person. Gene had stopped thinking of her as a bio-android a long time ago- he realized this as he pulled her close and kissed her. Then the two of them found themselves on Melfina's bed- not on top one another, but laying right next to each other. Gene was keeping his lecherous twenty-something instincts in check for the moment. That horrible thought Melfina had while being held on the Necromancer- that Gene and the others weren't real and her whole existence was a lie- was breaking to the surface of her consciousness again, but it wasn't as overpowering as before. If her life was merely some sort of fabrication, than she was going to make the most of it while it lasted. Gene didn't know what to say or what was on Melfina's mind- he could only sense that something was bothering her and looked at her with a bewildered expression as she wrapped her arms around him. 

"If this is a dream.....please, let me enjoy it a little longer." she murmured to nobody in particular as she drifted off to sleep in Gene's arms. 

It wasn't a dream. For better or worse, it was her reality.   
  


THE END 


End file.
